I
kissed the smiling face in the photograph and imagined that she could hear me
hundreds of miles away. With care, I placed the photo back in the slim gilt
cigarette case she’d given me as a present the Christmas before I left. It was
safe and dry there.

‘Talking to yerself
again, boy,’ bellowed Sergeant Thomas. He seemed unable to speak in a voice
with normal volume but we’d all found out that he’d got a soft side over the
last few months when we’d been in his command.

I
patted the left hand breast pocket of my khaki uniform as I had done so many
times over the months I’d been away. We’d all been so frightened when we’d left
for the front – though we’d never admit it, most of us were only boys really.
Bet’s photograph reassured me, protected me, kept me safe. It was the first
thing I looked at when I woke up and the last thing I checked before I went to
sleep. It had seen me through so much lately.

‘Why’s
the sand lumpy, Reg?’ I said to my mate, trying to keep my balance in the water
when we’d landed in France. The water was freezing and I could hear the sound
of my teeth chattering above all that was going on around us.

‘Don’t
look down, Frank. Them’s the boys that got here before us. Dead in the water.
Not so lucky as us, eh?’

That
was when the horror dawned on me.

And
then there was the time when Reg had been fatally shot alongside me. We’d
started training on the same day, at the same barracks and had been posted
together. Nothing could have prepared me for the utter despair I felt. One
minute we were stalking along a ridge ready to attack the enemy when a shot
rang out past my ear and Reg slumped to the ground, blood pouring from a wound
in his chest.

‘You,
OK, Reg?’

I
knew he wasn’t but I pulled him upright and started gabbling nonsense at him.

‘Answer
me, Reg, mate!’

It
was no use. I wondered if I’d be next. Would I ever hold Bet again? Afterwards,
that photo of her seemed to speak to me through the times of guilt when I
questioned why I was the one to have survived and Reg hadn’t.

All through those dark
days, Bet was at my side – her ‘Midnight in Paris’ scent, her laugh, her smile.
It was my favourite photo of her. When I’d been lonely, especially at night
time, I only had to look at that brown and white picture with the inscription
‘All my sincere love, Bet xx’ and I was transported back to our cottage in
Church Road, our first real home together. I remembered as if it were
yesterday. I couldn’t bear to leave her and I know that’s why she’d given me
the photo.

‘I
want you to keep it with you all the time,’ she said, biting back the tears.
‘That way, you won’t forget me.’

‘You
daft thing. As if I would ever…’ The kiss was to reassure her. ‘There’ll never
be anyone else.’

She
tilted her head to one side. ‘Well, I’ve heard that those French girls are very
beautiful…’

Her
hazel green eyes looked up at me and we kissed one more time.

I’d
shown the photograph to Reg once.

‘Corr,
she’s a looker. You’re one lucky geezer to have a missus like that, Frank –
looks just like Margaret Lockwood she does!’

‘All
that’s missing is the beauty spot,’ I said, joking.

Ten days later, he was
dead. I felt an utter numbness and emptiness that I’d not known before. It was
as if a lead stone filled my chest cavity and I found it difficult to breathe.
That’s when I found out that Sergeant Thomas had a bark that was far worse than
his bite. He’d been kind to me then, allowing me to talk to him about my
friend. He chose me to send a letter to Reg’s wife. I wrote that Reg often told
me how much she and the kids meant to him. At that time, too, I actually
started talking to the photograph, telling Bet all about Reg. I told her how
we’d got on so well even though we were from opposite ends of the country, me
from the back of beyond and him from the East End. His kids had been evacuated
out our way and now they were fatherless. Talking to her photograph just seemed
to be natural thing to do, as if I was back in our small kitchen talking away
like we used to do when I came in from working at the garage and with her
cooking my tea.

We were away from home
a long time and in our free time we sometimes used to wander into the local
villages. Over time, I met a few of the French girls that Bet was so worried
about but they couldn’t hold a candle to my girl. They were no match for the
beauty in my photograph. The elation we soldiers all felt at the news of
victory was unbelievable. Everything was worth it – the horror, the hardship,
heartache, even losing mates some said– but at last the country was going to be
free. Finally, we were going home. We had survived and were going home in
victory. I would be reunited with my favourite girl in the photograph.

***

The small black and
white building I called home loomed into view. It looked just the same as it
did when I’d left. My insides started to churn as I got nearer and I wondered
if Bet would look the same too, the same as the girl in the photograph. But, I
needn’t have worried. As soon as I opened the gate, the door of the cottage
flung open and Bet ran down the path into my arms. We both had tears streaming
down our faces.

‘I
thought I’d never see you again,’ she said, stifling a sob.

‘Oh
I saw you every night,’ I replied.

‘Don’t
be daft. I dreamt about you, too, if that’s what you mean.’

‘No.
I mean. I saw you every night,’ I said, ‘thanks to this.’

I
fumbled inside the jacket pocket of my de-mob suit and handed her back the
photo, albeit a little dog-eared.

‘Let
me look at you,’ I said, standing back to drink in the view I’d waited for
months to see.

The
dark brown hair was fashionably waved just as it was in the photo but there,
back at home; it was soft and silky to touch. Her eyes seemed even greener than
I remembered them and they sparkled when she talked nineteen to the dozen,
catching up on months of absence. Her cheeks were flushed and that sepia
photograph could never capture the real thing. I was happy to return it now to
the cream parchment album where it belonged. I was home with my girl and I was
home to stay.

About the author

A writer living in Cardiff, Jan joined a writers' group
three years ago and began writing for her own enjoyment. It wasn’t until she joined
a university writing class taught by a published author that she began to
submit stories for publication. Currently, she is compiling a collection of
themed short stories and attempting to write her first novel.